1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to writing data to storage devices, and in particular, to a method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for asynchronously and in parallel writing multiple of data streams into a storage device, using shared memory buffers.
2. Description of Related Art
During the execution of a computer program, data streams are written into or read from storage devices (e.g., tape drives and hard disks) serially. A data stream is all the data transmitted through a data channel in a single read or write operation.
Conventional read/write techniques for data streams usually result in an inefficient use of the data storage device and a longer throughput. Moreover, the bandwidth of a data storage device is frequently underutilized because the fastest rate attainable by a single computer program writing to or reading from a data storage device is usually less than the device bandwidth. Therefore, there is a need in the art for modifications to conventional techniques that increase the throughput of the storage device and thus improve the throughput of the system.